A Valuable Manuscript

One of my many hobbies is visiting car boot sales to see what I can pick up. This is like the garage sales but with cars. Sellers usually gather in a church car park, or other large space, open the back of their cars and display on small tables items they want to get rid off and sell cheaply.

You'd be surprised what people sell at these sales. Mostly what you find are worthless items, but every now and then, if you know what you are buying and have a keen interest in antiques, you can find a gem or two which you can re-sell later on for a fortune.

I remember years ago I was very lucky to find two rare items at the same car boot sale. First I found an oil  painting by Stradivarius, and then later on that day I discovered a violin made by Rembrandt.

I took them to an antique dealer. He told me they were rare but unfortunately Stradivarius was a bad painter and Rembrandt could not make a good violin to save his life. I sold both items for $400.

On another occasion I found a fountain pen and a cell-phone which belonged to King Henry the VIII. I later sold them for $2 each.

I also found a watercolour painting of King Harold at the Battle of Hastings, I think it was. The  Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William the Conqueror and an English army under the King Harold.

King Harold was shot in the eye with an arrow, in that battle. You can see it clearly in the painting. King Harold sitting on a horse with an arrow in his eye. Below it there's the inscription: Keep blinking your Majesty. It will work its way out!

Undeterred I continued visiting and searching car boot sales. And that's where I found a very rare brown canary. He was going cheep ... cheep ... cheep. I was told later that he was just a sparrow, so I let him go free. He immediately pulled off all his feathers revealing beautiful yellow plumage.

Anyway ... all this is leading to what I found last week at a sale. An old manuscript which looked very ancient indeed. It was hand-written, (that's why it's called a manuscript), in some very ancient language. I could not make out what language it was, or decipher any of the letters; and neither could the seller. It looked as if it dated back centuries, perhaps even a date B.C. - can you imagine that. It was leather bound and in fairly good condition considering its age. The pages had become brown with age and you could see the writing faintly on every page.

I took it to several experts to try to identify the language it was written in. None could identify it or even place a date as to when it was written, or indeed where.

I was very excited that at last I had discovered something that was worth a fortune. Can you imagine the feeling? Holding something in my hand that years ago could have belonged to some ancient sage, or perhaps a King from a far off land, or perhaps a wizard like Merlin or such like person.

If only I knew what was written in that book and decipher its secrets. Perhaps some ancient cures to many ailments that challenge modern science, or secret recipes for longevity, or magician's potions or spells perhaps.

Eventually I took the manuscript to an ancient language expert in our library. The expert wasn't ancient. He was about fifty years old or so. His skill was deciphering ancient languages; hence him being an ancient language expert. He was also an expert of anthropology. At first I thought this was the study of how ants apologise - ant thropolofy. But he told me he studied humankind; particularly human societies and cultures.

He said: "Do you realise that whilst you've been standing here 3000 people in the world have died?"

"OK," I said, "in that case I'll stand over there!"

He smiled and explained, "What I meant to say, every time I breathe in and out one person in the world dies!"

"You should try a better mouthwash," I replied.

Anyway, he looked at the hand-written manuscript and identified it straight away.

It is a doctor's diary.

Apparently all doctors write this way.

Adverts Influence You

Have you noticed when watching TV the sound is at the volume that you have set it at; and then, as the adverts are on, the TV sound automatically goes up in volume to make sure you are paying attention. I'm sure the adverts are recorded at higher volumes deliberately to attract your attention.

Most of the adverts exaggerate the benefits you're meant to get by buying the product. Why can't they be more honest?

For instance:

Do you have a big backside?
Our corset will only help make it look smaller. 
For real results try going on a diet.

Cream will help hide away the wrinkles of ageing. 

You must not be ugly to start with.
We do our best
Nature does the rest.

Eat Jumbo Burgers for a more rounded figure.

You'll have sex appeal for women who do not care.

HUMPS for men.

The after-shave lotion that smells like a camel.
Efficient insect repellent.

For your building project
Call LUCIFER CONSTRUCTIONS
The builders from hell !!!

Pizza like Mamma used to make.
With extra additives, preservatives and colourants.

Our cheese tastes like Heaven.

BRIGHTO TOOTHPASTE

Turns dirty teeth and an ugly smile

into

Little cleaner teeth and still an ugly smile.

DENTAGLU
For that smile you'll be stuck with.

AND FINALLY

Here's an HONEST advert I made myself 

The Elephant Story

Once upon a time there was an explorer in the jungle doing what explorers normally do … exploring. I believe he was writing a book about something or other … various toppings for pizza I think, and he was out in the jungle searching for inspiration … anyway … it doesn’t really matter what he was there for. The fact of the matter is that this explorer was out in the jungle and he came face to face with an elephant.

Well … not quite face to face … he, being a short man and the elephant being as big as an … elephant!

Oh … I forgot to tell you. This short explorer had previously been a doctor. Being so short he became a knee specialist since this is as far as he could reach.

So … to cut a long story short he became and explorer and here he was face to … body … with an elephant.

The elephant was lying on its side with its trunk in the air and flapping its ears … well, he was flapping one ear really, because the other one was under his head as he lay there on his side.

The short explorer also noticed that the poor creature was bleeding from its front paw … or foot, I suppose. Do elephants have paws? It’s not a foot either is it? Not like a human foot. Anyway … let’s get on with the story. This is taking longer than I thought!

The short explorer got nearer to the elephant and noticed a big thorn stuck there at the bottom of the elephant’s foot.

“Aha” … he thought, “I remember reading a story about a man who found a thorn in an animal’s paw … it was a lion I think. The man was called Androcles and George Bernard Shaw wrote a play about him in 1912. Then the man, Androcles, took the thorn out and the lion and he became friends. They met again many years later and the lion recognized him and befriended him all over again!”

Cheered by this happy story our short explorer approached the elephant ever so slowly and using a pair of pliers which he happened to have on him …

All right … don’t ask me why a short explorer in the jungle happened to have a pair of pliers on him. Maybe he had been a dentist and this was a tool he had to extract teeth … after he gave up being a knee specialist. Why do you keep interrupting with all your questions?

To continue … using the pair of pliers the short explorer extracted the thorn from the elephant’s foot. Try saying that with a mouthful of marshmallows!

The elephant was so relieved! He stood up at once and let out a big trumpet sound to say thank you and ran away happily in the jungle.

Many years later the same short explorer was visiting a zoo whilst on holiday and would you believe it … there in the elephant’s enclosure was a majestically big elephant.

The explorer looked up at the elephant. He was still short that’s why he looked up. And the elephant looked down at the man.

Their eyes met each other … not literally, just a figure of speech to say they looked at each other.

The elephant moved slowly forward and put his trunk through the big metal bars of the enclosure and ever so gently with his trunk he caressed the explorer’s head. The short man smiled. A tear ran down the elephant’s eyes as he continued caressing the explorer.

Then suddenly the elephant wrapped its trunk round the explorer’s neck and started to strangle him tightly until he was blue in the face. Luckily the zoo-keepers managed to free the explorer before he was killed.

Why did the elephant behave this way? You may ask.

The answer is simple.

It was not the same elephant!

And the moral of the story is:  If you're ever in the jungle and you meet an elephant in distress; just ignore him. Chances are you'll never meet again anyway.

OR

Another moral to the story:
 
Not everyone who says he’s a Christian is necessarily so. That's the real elephant in the room.

Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only those who do what my Father in Heaven wants them to do. Matthew 7:21

I'm not cut out to be a good Christian

I don't think I'm cut out to be a good Christian. It does not seem to work out for me.

Our church has a number of groups which we are encouraged to join in order to help other people less fortunate than ourselves in society. The sermon the other day was about the Good Samaritan and the priest encouraged us to join one or more of these groups.

I decided to visit the old people at the nearby Retirement Home and to cheer them up by reading to them. I thought they would enjoy something classical rather than the modern stuff like chick lit, or sexy books or violent ones. So I took with me a copy of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Unfortunately, I had only been reading for just over an hour when one of the residents tried to jump out of the third floor window where we were. The wardens had to stop him forcibly. Another went to the kitchenette next door and tried to commit suicide by putting her head in a pot of boiling spaghetti. She said she ignored the conventional head in the oven routine because it was electric. She ruined the spaghetti though.

A few days later I joined another group which visits hospitals and spends time with various patients. I took with me a different more cheerful book. Dante's Paradiso. I didn't consider Dante's Inferno appropriate because it does not contain much humour; and Dante's Purgatorio would no doubt confuse all non-Catholics as much as it confuses the Catholics.

This Purgatory thing is a Catholic box of confusion and I would not be able to explain it if anyone asked me anyway. I mean ... no where in the Bible is Purgatory mentioned. It sounds like a laxative to me. When Christ was on the Cross He said to the thief next to Him, Dismas was his name as I recall, Jesus said, "Today you will be with me in Paradise!" He did not say, "... but you'll have to spend some time in Purgatory first!"

Anyway ... as I was saying before my thoughts interrupted me, I took with me Dante's Paradiso. Unfortunately none of the patients I met understood Italian. Did I tell you that once in a restaurant I ordered the whole meal in Italian? The waiter did not understand a word. It was a Greek restaurant.

The following week I joined the Bereavement Group which meets every so often in group sessions in the church hall. That did not go very well either. When we stopped for a tea break the leader of the group asked me to leave because she did not think that telling jokes is an appropriate way to cheer people up at this difficult time in their lives.

A few days later I joined another group from our church. They go out at night to various parks and streets to feed the poor and the down-and-outs.

We parked the van by the roadside and it broke my heart to see literally dozens of people sitting on the wet grass waiting our arrival.

“Word soon gets around,” I was told “they tell each other that we’re here by around 10pm and every time we come there’s more of them!”

“There’s another van parked a hundred yards away,” I said.

“Yes … it’s another church. We’re glad they come too because we couldn’t cope on our own!”

I was given a big box full of pre-wrapped sandwiches which the ladies in church had prepared and I walked by the park edge handing them out as the vagrants got up and went to the van for a hot drink.

By the time I had emptied my box of sandwiches I had reached the other van from the other church.

“Hello … you are new here,” said a middle-aged lady from near her van, “I haven’t seen you before!”

“Yes … this is my first time here …” I smiled back.

“Would you like a sandwich?” she asked, “and a cup of soup? We have chicken and tomatoes, which do you prefer?”

“Oh no …” I smiled, “I don’t need anything to eat … thanks!”

“Do sit down …” she interrupted, “the chicken soup is hot and tasty … I made it myself!”

Before I could answer she was joined by another lady who said, “He’s probably shy, Mary! It’s very difficult for some of them to accept our help.”

I was about to explain when Mary interrupted again, “You look very cold my dear … this jacket you’re wearing has seen better days … we have a spare coat in the van … about your size I should say … let me get it …”

“No … no … you don’t understand,” I protested with a smile hiding the insult at my authentic 12 years old tweed jacket, “I am not one of the poor people. I came here to help with my friends from another church!”

“Now you’ve embarrassed him …” said the other lady to Mary, “either that, or the poor man is hallucinating … it happens when they’ve been drinking … does he smell of drink?”

I’ll have you know dear readers that I do not smell of drink but always of the best after-shave lotion I can buy for a few pennies down the market. This farce had got on too far and it was time I put these two lovely well-meaning ladies straight.

“Look ladies …” I said calmly yet authoritatively, “believe it or not, I am not here to ask for food or drink or clothing. I came with my friends from another church to help feed these poor people. I came in the van parked … parked … over … there!!!

“Where has the van gone? Where are my friends from my church? Did you see them leave?”

“Never mind …” said Mary in her sweet voice, “sit down here and try this soup and sandwich … I’ll go get you the coat!”

As she left I told the other woman, “I don’t know what’s going on. My friends are from St Bartholomew church. Do you know it?

“They have gone and left me stranded here … can you help me please and give me a lift in your van to the church? I left my car there!”

“Oh no …” she replied, “we’re not allowed to take passengers in our van. It’s only for us to come here and serve food …”

She walked away hurriedly and stopped Mary who was coming towards us with a coat. They both moved towards the van at speed. A man came out of the van towards me and said, “Here friend … I have something for you …” and handed me two sandwiches.

He then jumped in the van and they drove off at speed.

I gave the two sandwiches to two men sitting nearby and hurried as quickly as my legs would carry me towards the main road where I stopped a taxi and went home.

“Why did you drive off and leave me?” I asked the leader of our group when I got back to our church.

“We thought you’d gone into town to see the sites,” was the jovial unperturbed reply.

“But … but … I was wearing my cowboy hat with a large feather in it … clearly visible from afar … what do you want me to do? Put on a flashing light on top so you can see it from miles away?????”

Anyway ... unperturbed, I decided not to give up on this being a good Christian thing. So a few days later I joined the team giving out sandwiches to the poor once again. This time they drove to a nearby town I did not know so well and stopped at a street corner near a railway bridge.

I took my box of sandwiches and walked down a side street looking for vagrants who might be hungry. I approached a young woman in her thirties and as I offered her a sandwich suddenly a police car appeared from nowhere and two policemen arrested me for propositioning her.

They said it was a serious offence to frequent "ladies of the night" and that anything I said would be taken down as evidence to be used against me in court. 

They put me in the back of their car with the lady in question and my box of sandwiches. I hasten to add that neither her nor them accepted my offer of sandwiches. Although I'll admit I enjoyed the cheese and pickles one myself.

They put me in a cell at the station and I waited until our priest, Father Semolina, arrived to speak on my behalf.

When we were alone in the cell he asked me if I wished to confess for the sin of lust and wanting to "buy some good time" with a box of sandwiches. He added that this would also constitute the sin of the theft of the sandwiches which did not belong to me in the first place.

I tried to explain but I doubt very much he believed me. He said he will vouch for me with the police but it is only to keep the good name of the Catholic Church out of the newspapers.

Eventually, they released me and dropped all charges. But they kept the box of sandwiches.

As I said at the beginning, I am not cut out to be a good Christian. It is far too difficult.

 This story is dedicated to someone I know who does a lot of good work feeding the poor at night in London.

Erika Flounders

It's amazing how sometimes some people from one's past come to mind. Let me tell you about Erika Flounders. She lived next door to me many years ago when I was in London. She came to mind again recently as I was reading the Bible. Funny how sometimes there's a connection between reading something, or hearing a song, or seeing a photo, and it triggers something in your memory about  someone from your past. Anyway ... reading the Bible I suddenly thought of Erika.

The passage I was reading said, "Do not desire your neighbour's house, do not desire his wife, his slaves, his cattle, his donkeys, or anything else that he owns."

Hmmm ... my neighbour at the time, Gesophat Flounders, was an accountant. He had no slaves, cattle, donkeys or anything else I would desire. But his wife !!!

His wife ... there's absolutely no chance on earth that I would have desired or coveted his wife.

She frightened me. She was a very thin and tall woman with a smile that would send a chill down your back and up again. So thin that if she stood sideways she would vanish. So thin that if you hugged her you'd be on the back of her. So thin that you could see right through her.

Anyway ... enough with all these analogies about her thinness. She had teeth like the Ten Commandments ... all broken.

She had a nose so long that it entered a room ten minutes before her.

She had long black hair all the way down her back ... none on her head; just down her back.

She had a long semi-crooked nose a bit like a parrot's beak which allowed her to smell round corners. Sorry ... already mentioned her nose.

She had warts on her nose and they had warts on them too.

She won Best Warthog Beauty Contest at the Country Fair.  

I sometimes heard her cackle rather than laugh in her back garden. She was out there trying to sunbathe but to no avail whatsoever. As soon as she lies fully clothed on a couple of wooden planks the sun quickly hides behind the clouds in fear.

Even nature itself was frightened of her. One year the birds returned all the seeds they took from her garden the previous year. The flowers wilted and dried up at her very sight. The squirrels ran away holding on to their nuts. Basically, everyone kept at least a ten miles radius away from her ever burning gaze.

If I ever saw her in the street I quickly ran in before she notices me. I feared ever having to meet her in a dark alley at night. When my cat saw her he used to come running in the house and climb up the curtains; counting carefully his nine lives. Even the dog jumped on top of the fridge in fear. Have you ever had a bulldog on a fridge?

One day she accused me of sending frogs in her garden. I did not understand what she meant. She claimed that frogs come out of our pond and go through the hedge between us into her garden.

I saw her in her garden collecting frogs from the ground and throwing them high over the fence into our garden. I threw them back with my tennis racket as they flew through the air. Every so often I hit them hard and they didn't land in her garden but in the garden beyond that. She cackled madly and said "15-love!"

One night she rang me at 3.00am in the morning and complained that our horse was in her garden. I mumbled some apologies and went back to sleep.

It wasn't until the morning when I realised that we do not have a horse.

So I plucked up all my courage and I went next door to put her right. She cackled and said she'd had a nightmare!

Her house had the garage at the front of the house visible from the street. I saw her one day with the garage doors open. It was full of boxes, plastic bags, broomsticks, and containers of all sorts and so on. Basically, the garage was full to the roof with so much stuff she could hardly close the door. I volunteered to help her. I said, "You're looking for something. Can I help?"

She cackled as she usually does and replied, "I'm looking for my husband. I left him here three weeks ago!"

Come to think of it, I had not seen her husband for a while. He was a small short man who doesn't say much except, "Yes dear ... OK dear ... Whatever you say dear" and such like.

He used to be a safety officer in a coal mine. They used to tie a rope round his waist and send him down the mine. If he did not faint it was safe to go down and work. Otherwise they'd pull him up, revive him, and send him down again a few minutes later to check again.

I wonder whatever happened to Erika and her husband Gesophat. I left London a long time ago and have not kept in touch with them.

She must have had her good points I suppose, although she hid them well.

All this I have told you leads me to one question which has always crossed my mind: The Commandment clearly says you must not covet your neighbour's wife - and it is a sin to do so. Even if you covet her in your mind and not in reality like!

My question: Is it also a sin if, as in my case, you uncovet, or not covet at all, your neighbour's wife? Am I good because I obey the Commandment, or bad because I take its opposite to extremes?

Any ideas?

Negativity Positivity

The thing is, the world these days is full of negativity and (a little) positivity.

It's a question of whether the glass is half empty or half full syndrome. Personally, I don't care which it is as long as it does not leave a stain on the table. Sometimes those stains can be difficult to get off and if you use a spray cleaner you are releasing various bad things into the atmosphere which you are likely to breath in and possibly kill you ... in time ... maybe ... perhaps ... or give you some disease or other that the researchers have yet to discover, and make you worry about it even more in order to add more negativity to your life.

Wherever you turn these days there is someone warning you in a negative way how things are bad and are about to get worse.

You are warned on what to eat, not eat, do and not do, wear and not wear, and so on and so forth thus proving that you have been doing it all wrong all this time; and you are doomed anyway; and why are you not dead yet, because you should be considering the way you have been living so far.

For example, there was a time when we were told to eat five a day. This means five portions of fruits and vegetables a day. This is good for you. Avoid read meat, bacon, carbohydrates, fatty foods, alcoholic drinks, smoking, and most important of all do not eat plastic bags and plastic containers because they do bad things to your insides.

Now I read a latest research report that says drinking fruit juice, including freshly squeezed fruits, is bad for you because of its sugar content and it will make you ill and cause early death.

Everything seems to point towards the fact that whatever you do is wrong and will harm you and most possibly kill you.

So I advise you that if you are absent-minded do not take up parachute jumping as a hobby because you are more likely to kill yourself this way.

Perhaps I should take up smoking because I am sure sooner or later some research scientist will discover that smoking is in fact good for you.

What we need in this world right now is a bit more positivity to counter-balance all this negativity that is around. Positive thinking is good.

Whether it is political issues, economic matters, health questions, the environment, air quality, climate change or whatever else, there are always too many people peddling negativity to make us feel worse than we really are.

A friend of mine has become such a hypochondriac that he has made arrangements that when he dies he will be buried next to a doctor just in case!

When I told my friend, the psychiatrist, about all this negativity, and the fact that I had discussed it with my wife, he reminded me that he was a psychiatrist, and that his wife was a psychiatrist too. He suggested a group therapy session with him and his wife, with me and mine. I thought about it. To be honest, I am rather uncomfortable about having another man and his wife in bed with me and my wife. What kind of therapy is that? Is it positive, do you think? And will the bed be big enough?

Real positivity on the other hand is good for you. It makes you feel good and happy when in reality the situation is rather crappy. But you don't know about it; so why should you care?

A positive attitude is to feel that when one door shuts another one will open ... possibly outwards and it will hit you in the face; but then ... it's positive is it not?

Being positive is not bothering whether you have clean underwear because if you are run over by a bus it is the last thing the ambulance people will be concerned about. They'd be more concerned if you wore no underwear at all ... but then why would you want to do that unless it is to air your personality. That's positive; is it not? We should all air our differences every now and then.

Having a positive attitude encourages others to have the same positive attitude and it is contagious and makes everyone else feel better about themselves and their situation. Even though we are all falling off a cliff like lemmings. Have you ever met an unhappy lemming? No? That's because they are all positive even though they have nothing to be positive about.

Being positive encourages hope. Encourages mutual courage. Encourages the get-up and go attitude that we all need these days instead of sitting on our backside bemoaning what used to be and how it is now no longer so.

In a research conducted in an old peoples' home the elderly were asked, "What thing in life would you like to have done less?" Most of them said they should have worried less. They should have been more positive about the fact that one day they'll grow old and their families will leave them in a retirement home.

As Mark Twain said, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened".

Or as Groucho Marx put it, "Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself; I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it".

Personally, I prefer to quote myself, "Do not worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow has already happened in Australia."

But then ... I am not appreciated in my own time. Perhaps not appreciated at all really.

How Well Do You Know Your Bible Stories?

At the beginning God created Adam and gave him the task to name all the animals, birds and creatures of the sea. Adam was enthusiastic at first and as the animals passed by he said in monosyllables "Ant, bee, cat, dog, cow, pig ..." and so on.

In time, he became more adventurous and used longer words, "giraffe, horse, llama, tiger, panther, zebra ..." and so on.

But there were many animals and birds, not to mention all the fishes in the sea, still to be named. So Adam grew tired and he could hardly keep his eyes open. When the next animal walked by him he said, "Hippopotamus amphibius or Choeropsis liberiensis or Hexaprotodon liberiensis depending on the size of the animal."

At which point God hit Adam on the head with a dead bat and said "Don't be too clever, lad!"

And that's how we got the word Hippopotamus.

Anyway, this went on for a while and Adam grew tired and forlorn, whatever forlorn means. So he asked God, "I wish I had some company other than these dumb animals!"

God scratched His beard and asked, "What do you want?"

Adam replied, "I wish I had another person like me ... but not totally like me if you understand what I mean. I like her to be beautiful. I want her to love me and to be faithful and loyal to me. To be always with me. To be able to cook and clean when things get a little untidy; but not when sports is on TV. And generally to be the best companion and friend any one in the world would wish for. "

"Good Lord!" said God mentioning Himself, "you're not asking for much are you? To have a wife like that would cost an arm and a leg!"

Adam hesitated and then replied, "All right ... what do I get for a rib?"

So Eve was created and lived with Adam. One day she asked him, "Adam ... do you love me?"

"Who else is there?" he asked.

"Just me of course ... silly ..." she said coyly, "but I like re-assurance every now and then!"

"I married you didn't I?" replied Adam turning the volume on the TV.

And so it went for years ever since with women wanting re-assurance despite all the flowers and chocolates men buy from the gas station when they fill up their cars.

So this went on for years and years with more and more people populating the earth and mostly behaving badly. So one day God had enough and decreed that there will be rain for forty days and nights and everyone will drown ... except one family of a man called Noah.

God asked Noah to build a big boat. Big enough for him and his family and all the animals of the earth who will also be saved from the flood that is to come.

Noah did manage to build the boat, (God knows how long that took), and eventually started collecting animals from all over the world. However he became over-enthusiastic and collected mosquitoes, wasps, yellow jackets, scorpions, and all other creepy crawly bad creatures on the boat. He either had a very warped sense of humour or he was an utter and total complete idiot. Remember that next time a mosquito or wasp bites you.

Unfortunately, in his total stupidity, Noah forgot to put all the dinosaurs and the dodo in the boat. Which is why they are now extinct.

Did you know that originally Noah was a farmer, not a boat builder. He is also the first man ever to plant a vineyard and to make wine. He made a delicate yet potent wine known as Château Ark de Noah. He drank it and got totally drunk out of his deluded mind. He took all his clothes off and lay naked in his tent airing his personality. 

His son Ham, (what a name), saw Noah naked and he took photos with his cell-phone which he then posted all over Facebook.

If you don't believe me, why don't you read Genesis 9:20-22. It's all there.

Anyway, years later there was another man called Samson. He had long hair which apparently gave him great strength. One day, because he was angry with the Philistines, (who probably did not appreciate his modern trendy hairstyle), Samson caught three hundred foxes. Two by two he tied their tails together and put torches in knots. Then he set fire to the torches and turned the foxes loose in the Philistine cornfields. He burnt not only the corn harvested but also that in the field, and the olive orchards as well. (Judges 15:4-5).

It goes to show how violent people were in them Olden Tymes of the Old Testament. Fights often broke up between men ... and women too. So much do that a man called Deuteronomy had to write a rule book of combats. In it he said, "If two men are having a fight and the wife of one tries to help her husband by grabbing hold of the other man's genitals, show her no mercy ..." (Deuteronomy 25:11).

So remember that ladies next time you feel like grabbing a man's bits.

Another person worth mentioning is a young lad called David. One day, the nation of Israel was called to fight the Philistine army that had gathered for war. A great Philistine giant named Goliath that stood at over nine feet tall came to the front of the Philistine battle line each day for forty days and mocked the Israelites and their God. Goliath called to them to fight but King Saul and the Israelite were scared and did nothing. 

So tiny little David volunteered to take him on. Or was he made to volunteer? Anyway, David took a sling with him and a few stones. He put a stone in the sling and swung it at Goliath's head. The stone hit Goliath and he fell to the ground and David killed him. Had David taken with him his girl-friend's bra instead he would have been able to kill two giants at the same time.

David was not popular with anyone after killing Goliath, because everyone had bet a lot of money that Goliath would win.

There are so many other lovely stories in the Old Testament. Like the one about a man called Moses who did not have a satellite navigation system and took forty years to walk a short distance through the desert.

To his credit though, Moses did try to teach his followers and the rest of us how God would like us to live. But did we listen?

You can read this, and many other stories in the Old Testament. Including the one about a big wall in Jericho which was brought down by people blowing horns. Remember that next time you go to an open air concert!